What is JSON ?

“JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition – December 1999. JSON is a text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JSON an ideal data-interchange language.”

JSON is used a lot by web service as response to replace XML.

Why not using the XML object ?

AE’s XML object is handy, but yet have some weird way to access attribute, which in some case can become problematic. On top that the XML object comes with lots of methods and properties to handle properly an XML.
JSON is pretty much a native Javascript syntax. An object with Key/Values. So you can parse it with any kind of loop or js accessor. It’s easier and faster to handle, and lighter than XML.

Even better, to make sure the JSON object is always available when you launch AE, you can download this file and put it into the “startup” folder in your script directory. So the JSON object and function will be loaded at AE startup.

Introduction

FFMPEG is a command-line video/audio converter which supports lots of codecs and format but also can support some filters (blur, crop, scale, padding, LUT, …). And it’s freaking fast 🙂

Why using it ?

I only came across the video filter recently, and i’ll come back to it in future post. But the first/main reason I have been using it was for doing several conversion after render.
I’m rendering After Effects compositions into image sequences through several computers using Autodesk BackBurner and a script I made for it. That let me render the comps much faster.
Yet at the end I must deliver several formats as WMV, MP4, QT Animation, … So instead of creating a new AE project and converting PNG into those new formats, I’m creating 1 job on the renderfarm per format to convert it into. As a all picture, my AE script which send job to Backburner will first send the AE comp to render with after effects, and another job for each format depending of the AE render (this mean those job will wait for the AE render). Those depending jobs will use FFMPEG to convert PNG into the needed file.

How ?

Simple conversion :

-i is the input image sequence where %%5d is the number of digit (ie image_00000.png)-r the frame rate-b:v the bitrate of your video-c:v the video codec (in this case windows media video)-y means to overwrite the video file if it exists already
and then you specify where to save your video file.

Advanced conversion :

As PNG are RGB straight, if it does contain alpha, your RGB might look “weird” to you. Its because you need to premult the RGB with the alpha first.
To do that with FFMPEG we could use the filter graph, and draw the RGB in “overlay” mode.

All the other params are same as above, except for the Video Filter :-vf will duplicate the video 2 times (split) > we will turn the first video RGB to black and use it as a background (LUT) > we specify that the second video will be draw in Overlay mode (the overlay use the alpha as well) > then we draw the second video.
NB : by changing the LUT and especially the pad color (0xRRGGBB). You can change the background color to whatever you want.

Kiril Ivanov is doing a crazy job with After Effects ! He did create some really nice animated character using some really nice rig and stuff.
And he decide to use ft-Toolbar in his workflow to be able to animate and set his rig faster. And he also had the idea of multi-toolbar which now is fully supported in version 1.27. Checkout his video :

Introduction

Create an instance of an effect with one click™. Behind the scenes the script makes a copy of the effect and links it with expressions in a way that allows the instance to be anywhere including a different comp.

It has been for a while now, but I haven’t made an official announcement about it until now. So in case you haven’t notice yet, most of my Pixel Bender filter for After Effects are available on Lloyd Alvarez’s website which is called AEScripts.com. (But There are still all open source and you can name your own price 😉 )

AEScript is a great place to find many different kind of scripts or filters which can make your life easier on a every day basis. I would encourage you to go through all the scripts & filters list to see what exists. Because you might not need all them right now, but most of it have been made to solve problem people encounter with AE, so being aware that a script exists somewhere in case one day you have an issue with After Effect is a great knowledge for a user 🙂

As for today several filters and one script which I made are available there, but again check all the other ones as well, there are all incredible!

Introduction

This script gives the ability to make your own custom toolbar with Effects, presets or any commands you use the most often.This script gives the ability to make your own custom toolbar with Effects, presets or any commands you use the most often.

Toolbar’s features :

* Edit UI : add, delete, order, config buttons of your toolbar.

* 5 kind of buttons:

EFFECT : set the name of the effect you want to use (See usage details below).

ANIMATION PRESET : select an animation preset file (ffx) to apply.

SCRIPT LAUNCHER : select an script file (.jsx or .jsxbin) to launch.

MENU : set the exact name of any menu item you want to call. For example : Time-Reverse Keyframes.

JAVASCRIPT : type any javascript that AE understands. More advanced, but you can do some crazy macro command with it.

OS : Any Operating System command you can run into your terminal can be set here. For example calc (on Windows) or open -a Calculator (on Mac) would start the calculator.

* Buttons Icon : You can assign a custom image icon to each button. You can create your own icons or download a free icon pack below. All icons will be downloaded and saved into the config file. When you export the config file (xml) for use on another machine all the icons will be included so no need to keep the .png files. The buttons size can be set to any size you like, but it is a good idea for it to match the size of your icons.

* Import/Export : you can import and export the config file to set the same configuration on several computer or for making backups

* Configuration file path (xml) : you can set the path of the saved config file (xml) anywhere you want. (ie. to a dropbox folder to keep all your computer sync with the same config). The config file will include encoded versions of any custom icons.